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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Byzantine said:
Actually that seems kinda perfect - reveal a true weakness but make it appear larger than it actually is. A trap for anyone that tries to exploit it.
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The problem is that approach we do have a possible bigger weakness if one went digging, and if our first bid was this high, they might be tempted by what is in the jackpot that we are trying to bluff to non existence.

Through now that I think about it, if he did went searching and found out Mathy is a ranaldinte that will be fair too, Ranald can't really pin this one on Mathy with his little conclave prank.

Edit: shame that it's too late to receive traction for some sub option on the skaven version that explicitly says that this should be the best version that Mathy can think about for public(or at least the few in the know) consumption, Starke can't really complain about Mathy giving him a perfect excuse after he framed the question with that in mind, and giving her an option to leave.

Pretty sure a lot of the Tramua/Grief voters would have jumped on the chance to throw the skaven excuse without having to explicitly lie to the Grey head of security.
 
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Not me, at least. Skaven was OOC, and I'm in favor of not using OOC information in quest. I don't want to backfill support for otherwise puzzling decisions Mathilde made by implying she 'knew'.
 
Glau said:
Not me, at least. Skaven was OOC, and I'm in favor of not using OOC information in quest. I don't want to backfill support for otherwise puzzling decisions Mathilde made by implying she 'knew'.
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If you consider the actions taken as metagaming, which I agree with, and don't want to build a foundation based on actions taken under OOC consideration, that's fair. But at this instance it is less implying she knew and more she is using a lucky chain of coincidences to bullshit her way out of trouble.

Edit: beside, the only true meta choices made that I recall were the head of the watch cryptic reference, and the ratcatcher fold in, and honestly Mathy have a pretty good IIC explanation for both, namely the other candidate was also problematic and was less likely to mesh with Mathy, and she did made it a habit to try and fold other organization under the watch with the gung hoarders.
 
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Fair. I guess I am reading from the perspective of learning about the skaven for the first time the same time Mathilde did, on the K8P expedition, and I was wondering WTF was going on with the choices being made with the watch for a while previously. They didn't make a lot of sense, and I had all the information that Mathilde was supposed to have
 
Codex said:
So I was going over the latest update to compile moments of Mathilde's paranoia, overthinking, wonderings and musings, because I realised how many times "you wonder" was said in the update (exactly six times to be specific), but then I realised something:

Was this an intentional Kuzco's Poison reference?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcKGw-IO5Uc

With that out of the way, I present a compilation of Mathilde's internal wanderings.

Worried Mathilde.

The first wonder, about Elrisse's reaction.

The second wonder, about the Sun Room.

The third and fourth wonders, about Volans' eyes and his opinion on the strife in his order.

Minor tangent about sunlight.

The fifth wonder, about how high up the chain she got an endorsement from.

The sixth wonder, this time about Elrisse's mannerisms. The next conversation is with Horstmann, and she wonders no more.

This entire paranoia session, focused on working through her panic similarly to her first reaction to Thorek's letter.

Assessing whether the speed of response to her knocks is a good or bad thing.

Full blown detective session in her head while Starke is talking to her.

Mathilde forcing herself to trust the guy in charge of internal security of her Order, who happen to be the secret police of the Empire.

Mathilde's a very fun character.
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All the wondering takes place while she's in the Light College. My guess is that even if she's not ingesting any Hysh, it's still having a radiative effect on her mood or internal Ulgu-monal balance (see how their big ol' pyramid started making her prose in her head, and she mentally yelled at it). Last time she wasn't as affected because she hadn't literally slept in the heart of their power.

Then the heavy paranoia and mental strolling might be her snapping back into the high Ulgu enviro of the Grey College.
 
Glau said:
Fair. I guess I am reading from the perspective of learning about the skaven for the first time the same time Mathilde did, on the K8P expedition, and I was wondering WTF was going on with the choices being made with the watch for a while previously. They didn't make a lot of sense, and I had all the information that Mathilde was supposed to have
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I came with pre knowledge of the setting, but then again I binge read all the story up to update 27? so I don't really had the time to stew on how much the thread was meta gaming back then.

So a question for someone who didn't know the lore back then, what really felt weird to you about her choices?

I felt that the head watcher she choose did have a better chemistry to where she wanted to push the Watch, mainly as a body that can co exist with the criminal underworld to better serve as a shield against vampires.
Ranald worship came later and was in line with he new Trait of Disdain for Sigmar.
And regarding to enfolding the Ratcatchers, I do agree it seems weird, but I kind of rationalized that Mathy had taken the cryptic musing of the candidate as cryptic reference to possible smuggling and various conspiracies, which she would want to have an eye on and folding the Ratcatchers, as an organization that travel the sewers below, would give her a direct line of information.

silentorphan said:
But she's not in trouble? Like Starke said, she can just leave, and he'll shrug and mark the file closed, and that's that.
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Then less of a trouble and more toward a possible answer that would both protect her from naysayers and shut that line of inquiry down without anyone seeing fit to dig deeper.
 
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It was the ratcatchers and the dogs, mostly- I binge read the first bits too, but I remember that I kept thinking "but why? Vampires aren't coming from the sewers" because vampires were what the Count had asked us to focus on. Which, if we had, there were better choices to build the watch's power.
 
Glau said:
It was the ratcatchers and the dogs, mostly- I binge read the first bits too, but I remember that I kept thinking "but why? Vampires aren't coming from the sewers" because vampires were what the Count had asked us to focus on. Which, if we had, there were better choices to build the watch's power.
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Fair, the ratcatchers were pretty blatant, and I honestly forgot Mathy tried to introduce dogs to the watch.

...Must... resist... urge... to reread the whole stirland arc...
 
Aranfan said:
... why? It might not be as good as the later stuff, but it's still pretty great.
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Got too much other crap to do, and if I start reading the stirland arc and I will come back into awareness at 5 am in the morning before an 8am class.

Beside, I need to start tending to my other quests read list before they get jealous and try to shank DL.
 
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After some thought, I think I'd rather not go "grief".

If it's to be our official story, potentialy slighting the Church of Sigmar by admiting we acted against a sigmarite organisation willfully just isn't worth it. Especially now that we entered the political arena with theWaystones Project. Sigmarites are a huge power bloc in the empire and we might want their help in the future.

It's the Ranaldian thing to do to pass for at the very least having some respect for Sigmar even if we don't. After all, even if we DO want to weaken the sigmarites' hold on the empire's institution it's much easier to do from the shadows.

Thinking about it, Grief is almost worst that Piety for our relations with sigmarites. After all, helping our favored god is understandable, attacking a sigmarite organisation out of spite is almost worst.

[X] Skaven
 
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Well, yeah, grief is snubbing the sigmarites. That's why I'm voting for it. Narrative tension, giving Starke a check on his ambitions, living up to the trait we have.
 
Glau said:
Well, yeah, grief is snubbing the sigmarites. That's why I'm voting for it. Narrative tension, giving Starke a check on his ambitions, living up to the trait we have.
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I'm not against acting against the sigmarites but showing our colors for no reason just seems pointless and petty. We might very well have to call a vote to the electors eventually and or simply access their ressources to help us for the Waystone Project.

If we are to hurt the Church of Sigmar, let's do it like a ranaldian from the dark.

Hell, "Skaven" brings better arguments against sigmarites than "Grief". In the former, we say that the intention was right in trying to convert the organisation but our implementation was bad. In the latter, we admit acting against Sigmar was a mistake. That we were salty that Sigmar didn't grant us a miracle on the spot and we had to suffer the loss of a loved one like 99.999% of mortals and we oppressed innocent sigmarites under our control as an act of vengeance against their god.
 
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Look, at some point you gather enough power that you don't have to calculate every interaction for future benefit, and can instead afford to make others with around your preferences.

I don't think we need the sigmarites. We've got great relations with ulricans, taalites, Ranaldians, Kasmir, and Roswita. I think we're pretty well insulated and can afford to lean a bit on the organization we are part of the leadership for, to express a desire that it not be sigmarite.
 
Glau said:
Well, yeah, grief is snubbing the sigmarites. That's why I'm voting for it. Narrative tension, giving Starke a check on his ambitions, living up to the trait we have.
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I don't quite follow your reasoning there. The voting options are defenses and cover stories for the eventuality that Mathilde faces scrutiny. By outsiders, if we take Starke at face value, or by insiders, if we don't trust him and our fellow Greys. The premise of Grief is that Mathilde made an understandable mistake—that she acted rashly in her grief and lashed out, and that she now acknowledges that as an error. That's not a snub, or if it is, then it's by Journeywoman Mathilde, not LM Mathilde. The option to make that kind of narrative tension(insofar as any tension exists with how not-big a deal this is) with Starke should be Piety.
 
Sculpt0r said:
All the wondering takes place while she's in the Light College. My guess is that even if she's not ingesting any Hysh, it's still having a radiative effect on her mood or internal Ulgu-monal balance (see how their big ol' pyramid started making her prose in her head, and she mentally yelled at it). Last time she wasn't as affected because she hadn't literally slept in the heart of their power.

Then the heavy paranoia and mental strolling might be her snapping back into the high Ulgu enviro of the Grey College.
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My theory was that Mathilde is used to being completely suffused with Ulgu. She's incredibly deep into her Wind by this point (Magic 9 and 3 Arcane Marks), and Ulgu is her source of power, so she's used to always having a significant amount ready at hand for a last second Invisibility+Smoke and Mirrors or something.

Which is the reason she's so uncomfortable in the Light College. She spent a full night suffused in an area that is the cardinal opposite of her Wind, and I can't imagine there's all that much Ulgu in the place for her to draw on, so she's suffering from a withdrawal of her power source.

My belief is that she was compensating for that by generating an internal source of Ulgu, perhaps unconciously, by constantly askiing herself questions. Ulgu is the Wind of Curiousity, and by constantly asking questions for the sake of asking them rather than really looking for any sort of answer, she's generating Ulgu ready to use and have on hand.
 
Codex said:
My theory was that Mathilde is used to being completely suffused with Ulgu. She's incredibly deep into her Wind by this point (Magic 9 and 3 Arcane Marks), and Ulgu is her source of power, so she's used to always having a significant amount ready at hand for a last second Invisibility+Smoke and Mirrors or something.

Which is the reason she's so uncomfortable in the Light College. She spent a full night suffused in an area that is the cardinal opposite of her Wind, and I can't imagine there's all that much Ulgu in the place for her to draw on, so she's suffering from a withdrawal of her power source.

My belief is that she was compensating for that by generating an internal source of Ulgu, perhaps unconciously, by constantly askiing herself questions. Ulgu is the Wind of Curiousity, and by constantly asking questions for the sake of asking them rather than really looking for any sort of answer, she's generating Ulgu ready to use and have on hand.
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Metaphysics are far from my strong suit, but far as I'm aware, emotions and such attract the various Winds, but do not generate those Winds (the ultimate source for all Winds being the Polar Gates)
 
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